Monthly Archives: July 2010
the me me game/theme me game/the me mega me
Eight responses to eight questions posed by Dave over at Via Negativa–nicely done, Dave! My responses can’t possibly measure up. My own questions follow the set. Is half a stone still a whole stone? If the heart is hard it doesn’t … Continue reading
My Dance Card Is Not Quite Full…
Like many people who work in my industry, I have time off periodically–between semesters, some summer break time. Usually, I begin those times with big plans: redecorate the bedroom, write x number of poems, send out x number of manuscripts. … Continue reading
Voice and Trust in Vice
25 January 2004 Within formal poetry, each form has its own unique pitfalls: with sestinas and pantoums, it is the danger of repeated phrases becoming stale and therefore easy to overlook; with metered lines, it is that recurring rhythms may … Continue reading
“The Planet in a Grain of Sand”: on The Lightning Should Have Fallen on Ghalib
8 August 2003 In the introduction to The Lightning Should Have Fallen on Ghalib: Selected Poems of Ghalib, the poet Robert Bly notes that, “Ghalib’s tart, spicy declaration of defeated expectations ranges over many subjects” (2). This statement is true, … Continue reading
Comic Noir: Dick Tracy and the Style Racket
11 December 2001 It starts with a classic camera pan: the city pans out before us, not daylight, not exactly dark, but half-lit as if at sunset. We are to be present for the very beginning of the story, as … Continue reading
I’ll Wager: Anthropomorphism and Order In the Book of Job
16 November 2001 Although readers may have been and may continue to be inspired to new heights of faith “down through the ages to the present time” (Bergant 469) by the Book of Job and its story of one man’s … Continue reading
Ayn Rand and We the Living
20 April 2001 “We the Living is not a story about Soviet Russia in 1925. It is a story about Dictatorship, any dictatorship, anywhere, at any time, whether it be Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, or – which this novel might … Continue reading
Snow
What a joy to be unnoticed, who always says the wrong thing.